


Do It Alone

by stormbourne



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blowjobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, azure moon chapter 17 spoilers, how to cope with grief and past trauma by two morons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 04:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormbourne/pseuds/stormbourne
Summary: Over the fields of Gronder, a Faerghan horn rings out in a pattern that can mean only one thing: A field commander is badly injured. Felix Hugo Fraldarius knows this has to mean Dimitri, his prince and unfortunate responsibility, is dying, and rushes to his side. That's where he finds the truth: an injured animal, and something much worse.Chapter 17 Azure Moon spoilers.





	Do It Alone

The entire battlefield stank like burning corpses, and Felix raised a hand to wipe the blood from his face. 

The Empire's line had broken long ago, the boar prince himself leading the charge, with their beloved professor only a few steps behind. And, for that matter, his own damned father only a set of steps behind _her._ Over the trees, Felix could see the smoke rising from the smoldering ruin that had once been ramparts leading to a ballista. He could, in fact, recall the exact expression on Bernadetta's face as a blazing arrow struck a barrel not far from where she stood. 

The entire thing had gone up in flames. Felix had been lucky to make it out alive. By then, the boar had already forged far ahead. He didn't have time to waste with lesser targets. There was only one person who could satiate his obscene bloodlust.

A horn sounded, somewhere over the trees. Felix raised his head, squinting, as he sheathed his sword. Was that one of theirs? No. Too brassy, too long and high. It wasn't a signal he recognized. The Empire, then. A signal to retreat, almost certainly. Claude's gaggle of soldiers had long since fled, likely driven off by the boar's madness. And if the emperor had been killed, then there would be no need to signal a retreat. 

The boar would be beside himself, with the emperor out of reach. Felix was already dreading it. The murmuring about his ghosts. The promises and pleas to people who weren't there. The dead, hollowed-out look in his remaining eye. 

Worst of all, how his father would simper and sigh over the beast like its madness could be cured with only the power of time and gentle words. 

He could see, now, imperial men fleeing through the trees that he'd nestled himself in. Unlike the boar, he had no desire to chase men who were retreating. They'd likely die eventually regardless. Probably in Enbarr, when the prince's mad crusade took them there. He pushed one of the corpses beside him out of the way with one foot, leaning down and assessing his wounds while he had a moment to recover. They'd be on the march again themselves in no time. Back to the monastery to plan their next move. 

He was, all in all, mostly fine. A few cuts and scrapes here and there. Nothing Mercedes and Manuela wouldn't be able to take care of in a blink. But there was, unfortunately, a nasty burn down one of his legs -- he'd been trying not to think about it, and trying even harder to hide how badly he was favoring it when he fought. The emperor was ruthless, but her tactics certainly got results. He pulled out another vulnerary to salve it until he could get it treated, bracing himself against a tree in a way he hoped would keep himself safe from enemy soldiers who got ideas. 

It hurt like a bitch. Vulneraries were made for salving cuts, not burns, and the herbs stung. He narrowly avoided swearing loud enough to rouse the attention of the entire remaining imperial army. But the horn sounded again, more distantly, and nobody came to attempt to cut him down. He redid his sloppy bandaging, pulled himself to his feet, and tried to get his bearings. The war camp they'd established was to the northwest. Beyond the ruined ballista. 

He'd made it halfway there and was pondering the best route around the burning ruin when another horn sounded. Louder, deeper, more a war horn than a trumpet like the Empire favored. The retreat, then.

It stopped, then started again. Then repeated. His heartbeat stopped dead, and so did he. There was an injury to a commander. A significant one, or they wouldn't have sounded the horn. 

Dimitri. 

He didn't know what way to run, but he wasn't stupid enough to barrel headfirst through what had become a mass funeral pyre. He cut west, the last direction he'd seen Dimitri go before he'd lost sight of the damned imbecile altogether. His leg seared and burned and ached like the Goddess had plunged it into the fires of Ailell, but if Dimitri was dead and he'd left the fool to it, he was never going to forgive himself. If the emperor had killed him after all, then -- then maybe Felix would be the one whispering at ghosts that he'd take her damned head. He wanted to believe he was above that. 

But when it came to Dimitri, he couldn't say. 

If the bastard was dead, Felix would hound him into the next life. That much, at least, he knew to be true.

The numbers of the dead increased as he ran. The corpses were strewn across the open plain. A few greedy ravens fought over one of the men, posturing and flapping wings at one another. Some of the men were their own. Far more of them wore Empire colors. Felix barely glanced to the side enough to see several Fraldarius soldiers clustered together. One of them was supported by two others, his arms over their shoulders. Felix yanked himself to a stop. His leg screamed protest.

"You," he barked at one of them. "Why's the horn been sounded?" 

The man in the middle blinked at him, and a strange, sad expression overcame his face. The murmurs of the other men fell silent, and the one he'd addressed cleared his throat.

"My lord," he said.

Dimitri was dying, then. 

"Never mind," he dismissed the man, "you're useless," and then he was off. If he was lucky he could throttle the boar before he passed. Demand how he could do this to them. To the other Faerghans. To his country.

To Felix. 

His breath burned in his lungs. The air stank of smoke, and made his chest heave with every step he took. His leg seared pain up his spine and he didn't fucking care. He moved like the fire itself through the field, steps uneven and gait loping but quick.

He saw the professor before he saw Dimitri.

She had her back to him, her holy sword in one hand, still dimly glowing. She had her gaze cast down toward the ground. Felix followed it. There was a girl there, one he vaguely recognized from helping in the kitchens and the laundry the past few weeks. She was dead, bled out. Beside her was a wickedly sharp knife, covered blade to hilt in blood. 

Professor Byleth Eisner looked up at him. Her face was, as usual, blank as a sheet of stone. She blinked, and something pinched between her eyebrows, her mouth thinning and going tight at the corners. Then she turned, and moved aside.

Behind her, he saw the boar.

The absolute idiot wasn't dead at all, but he was crumpled on the ground. There was a nasty-looking wound in his shoulder, between the joints of his armor, but it wasn't like to kill him. Around him swam his cloak, swathed red all the way up to the fur lining knotted around his shoulders. Areadbhar lay forgotten on the ground, as well-cared for as a tree branch. The boar's hands were covered in blood. He was staring down into his lap, his hair covering his face from this angle. 

In his lap was Felix's father.

Things stopped, for a moment. The world moved through slow syrup as Felix pieced together what had happened. His father's chest had a long, wicked cut diagonally across it. The professor sheathed her blade with a loud sound of bone scraping against metal. Somewhere, far behind the boar and the corpse of his father, he could see Mercedes rushing toward them, her veil flowing behind her with her movement. Gilbert stood nearby, turned away, his head lowered. Clouds drifted in over the blazing sunset, turning the sky dark. He heard the Faerghus horn again, muted. Blood dripped from his father's soaked chest down onto the cobbled earth below, the unpleasant reminders of the childhood wargames they'd played at Garreg Mach.

Thunder rolled over him, and he moved. 

He might have turned to the professor, or to Gilbert, and demanded why they hadn't stopped this. He might have rushed toward Mercedes and told her to move faster. Hell, he _might_ have grabbed his father, shaken him by the shoulders, and demanded that he wake up. 

His father wasn't going to wake up. 

"Disgusting," he said, instead, stopping over the boar's hunched form. Its shoulders shuddered. Good. He hoped he'd hurt it. "You know, in some ways, I think this is how he always planned to die. Doing something stupid and heroic for someone who couldn't have cared less. What concept does an animal have of death?" He shook his head, spat blood down onto the earth. Distantly, lightning flashed, and thunder rolled again a few moments later. It was going to be a long and unpleasant march back to the monastery, in the rain. His leg throbbed. He wouldn't let them haul him back in the infirmary wagon. 

"But I suppose this was fated to happen, wasn't it, boar?" he continued, as the sky darkened. From what seemed an eternity away, he heard the Empire's horn sound again, calling the last of its soldiers back. They wouldn't wait long. If they saw the rightful king of Faerghus huddled here in the dirt, they'd form rank and kill him without so much as a blink. "First Glenn, now him. I suppose _dying like a true knight_ runs in Fraldarius blood." He spat again. His mouth felt full of bile, but he refused to let himself vomit in front of this wild, stupid creature. "I just wish I could show him that all of his absurd heroism was for nothing," he finished, and moved to turn back to the war camp. Mercedes had almost made it over to them, but the professor had intercepted her. She'd covered her mouth and stared at the two of them and the corpse with horror in her eyes. Felix took a step back, and then turned on his heel.

That was when the boar moved.

It was a quick, almost spontaneous movement. Nothing calculated or deliberate. It wasn't even lurching or shambling, like the beast had so often been in the chapel he'd taken to treating as his quarters. His shoulders shook, he took a loud, heaving breath, and he raised his head to look at Felix. 

His face was not just damp, but soaked with tears. His nose was dripping, and it was impossible to tell if it was sweat or tears which matted the hair over his working eye, which was shot through with red. There were even tear tracks from underneath the creature's eyepatch. His mouth was twisted into a rictus of grief, pulled tight at the corners, and the ragged intake of breath made it clear that he'd not yet stopped sobbing.

There was a light in his normally-dead eye, which locked onto him. Felix felt pinned under its weight.

"Felix," the boar said, and for the first time in his fucking life, Felix wished he'd been mistaken for his dead brother. 

He ran.

He was limping by the time he got back to the war camp. The horn sounded behind him. Doubtless somewhere back there, the boar was lifting his father's corpse and carrying it along with him, like an absolutely sentimental fool. If it weren't for Cornelia's damned coup, he'd have been sent home in a casket wrapped with the symbol of house Blaiddyd, symbolizing his sacrifice. The same way Glenn had been brought home. Accompanied by a full regiment of soldiers. Honored. Recognized for his service.

And dead.

His leg blazed hot pain up his entire side. His mouth swam with bile. Through wavering, swimming vision, slightly clouded with redness, he could see Seteth directing soldiers, barking orders as they retreated in clumps.

Felix bent over and was promptly and violently sick all over the rough dirt path that led the rest of the way up to the camp. 

"Felix?"

He blinked up through hazy, wet eyes to see Annette standing over him. Her face was not altogether impressed, or even impassive. As a matter of fact, he looked like she was about to be sick herself, her eyes wide with concern.

"My leg," he said. "I need a poultice. Where's Manuela?"

"You're bleeding _everywhere,_" she said, "come on, come lay down before you pass out!"

Oh. He looked down at his leg to discover that the bandaging had given way. It must have been in his rush to leave the presence of the boar, cradling his father's corpse in his arms. 

He had to squint his eyes shut and clench his jaw to keep himself from emptying his stomach again. Would Rodrigue join the ranks of the mad prince's ghosts? Would Felix have to bear being confused not only for his dead brother, but for his _father,_ next?

His stomach heaved without his permission. He vomited a second time.

"Goddess, Felix!" Annette, tiny as she was, hauled him to his feet and slung one of his arms over her shoulder. "Manuela! Hanneman!" she shouted, and started all but dragging him back into the camp. "Felix is in really dire straits, and he's, uh, well, he's horfing a lot so I think maybe he might be poisoned, and I don't know _where_ Mercie got to -- "

There was an obvious answer for that one. "She's with the professor," he mumbled downward, staring at the worn path below them. "And the boar," he added, because that was important. And then, "And my father." 

"Did something happen to Dimitri?" Annette asked, her voice suddenly quivering with terror. "I heard the horn. Don't tell me that Edel -- that the emperor -- " 

"He's fine," Felix said. His vision wavered. Pain seared over his side, but he felt very cold and numb throughout the rest of his body. He was faintly sure he was about to pass out. "My father is dead," he said, because at this point, he didn't see why not. "That's who the horn was for." 

Their pace stopped. He wavered on his feet. He felt like his knees were about to buckle. 

"Your -- Lord Rodrigue is -- oh, _Felix,_" Annette said.

He opened his mouth to reply. He needn't have bothered. His vision prickled with blackness and then faded out entirely. Distantly, he heard a thud, and then he heard nothing. 

It seemed like only a few seconds later that he opened his eyes, but he was met with the ceiling of the infirmary. He could hear rain coursing over the walls and windows, and he sat up.

"Not so fast, you," Manuela's voice said, and her long-nailed hand pushed him back onto his cot. He sighed. He had really hoped he could escape without a lecture. As she took a seat beside his bed, he rolled his head down enough to inspect his side. The whole thing was bandaged, some sweet-smelling poultice seeping out from under the gauze, but whatever it was, he at least didn't feel like his entire leg was on fire, anymore. When he turned his head the other way, he could see Mercedes bustling between cots, moving quickly. They'd taken too many injuries, not to mention casualties. The entire battle had been a farce. 

"I'll be careful with it," he intoned dully before Manuela could say another word. "And I'll quit doing so much running when I'm injured. And --"

"And," she said, "you'll spend the next week abed, because if you don't, it's likely to be the next month." When he looked at her face, she was chewing her lip. Her cosmetics were faded and her mascara had run slightly. She looked like she'd been awake for a week. But, more importantly, she clearly had something else she wanted to say.

"Don't," he said, quickly.

"Felix," she said, regardless. "Lord Rodrigue -- "

"Is dead," he said, and sat up. She didn't push him back down this time. "Bury him here. Or burn him, and save his ashes to send home if Fraldarius ever gets freed from the reign of that harpy. It's too dangerous to send them now. She'll intercept anybody we -- "

"Arrangements are being made, you idiot boy," she interrupted. "You can't just swallow this down. I've learned enough from teaching you to know that's _exactly_ what you're likely to do, but you're not the only person in this army that's -- "

"I don't want, or need, your lecture, Professor." 

She didn't seem to expect that. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot, tested his legs, and then pulled on a shirt sitting on the table beside him. It hung low, almost to his knees, like a child's nightshirt. Walking back to his quarters in this was going to be embarrassing, but he doubted Manuela would allow him to put on a respectable pair of trousers just yet. There was a pair of sandals sitting beside the cot, and he fumbled them on. He noticed, belatedly and with no small amount of annoyance, that his hair was down, and there certainly wasn't anything nearby for him to use to tie it back out of his eyes. 

"Thank you for the help," he said, and stood up. For a long moment, his knees threatened to give out again, but he managed to keep his balance. Even if it did make his burn sting and ache again. "Good night, Professor." 

"Felix," she said, but not until he was halfway to the door. As he glanced back, he watched Mercedes turn from her work, looking over her shoulder at him. Manuela was still sitting on the bench beside his cot, her fingers laced together. There were a million things he wanted to tell her to keep her from saying anything else about his reckless, chivalrous imbecile of a father. 

She, thankfully, didn't say much.

"You can't do this alone," she said. Those were the only words she seemed to have.

He swallowed and shook his head, then turned away.

"I have to," he said, not sure if she heard, and hoping that she hadn't. 

The infirmary was close to the dormitories, by necessity if nothing else. The boar kept his eternal watch in the chapel, and some of the others had moved into the rooms that had formerly been used by the Seiros priesthood. But Felix was more comfortable around the soldiers than he was around Sylvain or Ingrid, having to weather their wary concern about Dimitri while, at the same time, having to look after the animal himself. It did, at least, make his fumbling, uneven walk back to his room shorter. He put his shoulder against the door as he fumbled with the handle, cursing as his fingers slipped. What a damned blessing that there was no reason to lock the doors, here. He couldn't imagine he would have been able to handle something as delicate as _keys._

"Felix."

The voice was behind him. He went stiff as a rod. As though reacting to the presence that he knew was there, his burn throbbed.

"Come to see me in my most humiliating state, boar?" he called over his shoulder. He had started shaking, almost invisibly. Out of anger, he was certain. "Get your eyeful while you can. I've been sentenced to a week abed by Professor Casagranda. So, luckily for you, you won't have to see my sorry face for a week. A whole week, getting to talk with my brother and my father and," his voice was getting louder. He yanked at the door handle until the latch finally turned. "And not having to deal with the agonizingly _alive_ one in the family, who keeps trying to make you face the fucking world instead of dwell in your insane revenge fantasy. I'm very happy for you." 

"Felix," the boar's voice said again. He refused to turn and look at the prince. Why would he? Just to witness him, with that crazed darkness, swear that he'd promised Rodrigue that the emperor would die in some new, ever-more-gruesome way? What would it be this time? 

"Go the _hell_ away, boar," he hissed, and tried not to think of Dimitri's face, under the darkening clouds, covered in tears, looking at and _seeing_ Felix for the first time in five years.

But was that really how it had been? He tried not to think of the chapel, how occasionally Dimitri would, seemingly, become suddenly aware of his presence and turn to look at him, over his fur-lined shoulder. He tried not to think of the look on Dimitri's face when Dedue had appeared seemingly out of mist and the prince's own desperation on the Bridge of Myrddin. It was easy to think of the boar as an animal, until he remembered the moments where he had never been. The brief flashes of the man he'd always seen as a mask, during their school days, back in attendance for the crazed monster that Dimitri had become. 

"Felix," the boar said, once more, and then, the words Felix wanted to hear least in the entire world at this moment, "I am sorry." 

Felix opened his mouth to tell the boar something scathing. Something cruel, that would drive him off and make him leave Felix alone. He didn't need sympathy, or pity, especially not from the animal prince at his back. 

Water dripped down onto the floor from the leaking eaves as his door finally swung open. His words died on his tongue. A ragged noise that he refused to call a sob tore out of his throat. He covered his mouth so he wouldn't be sick again. 

A pair of hands wrapped around his shoulders, and ushered him into his room. Felix struggled the entire way in, but the boar was as powerful as ever, and as unwilling to compromise. He stumbled forward and, behind him, Dimitri closed the door and leaned back against it. 

He looked a wreck. His hair was matted and tangled, and though he'd taken his armor off, his shirt was still stained with blood, especially around the shoulder that had been wounded. His face was still red, a deep dark bruise under his visible eye. Without his armor on, it became all the clearer how gaunt and ragged he'd become since fleeing Faerghus. He was soaked through, his shirt all but dripping off of him. Felix could see the bandages around his shoulder through the stained cloth.

"What do you _want?_" he demanded. "Come to assure me you'll get your revenge? That the emperor's head will be delivered to me, personally, on a platter? That'll be what brings my father and my brother back to the world of the living, I'm sure." 

Dimitri's eye darted, momentarily, to the side, and for a long moment Felix felt vindicated. Here it was. The moment where he spoke to his ghosts, promised them a sea of blood for their vengeance. Three separate times in the chapel, Dimitri had called Felix by his brother's name. Five separate times, he'd stopped speaking to Felix in favor of turning to someone who wasn't there and murmuring apologies. This would be just like all the others. 

"Have the respect not to add my father to your list of demons," Felix spat, in an effort to head off the nonsense he knew was coming. "If you ever cared a whit about him, you owe him that much." 

Dimitri's eye snapped back to him, and he shook his head almost invisibly. 

"He isn't there," he said. Then he lowered his gaze to the floor. "I -- think I owe you a great many apologies, Felix. For a great many things. But -- but Rodrigue died protecting me, and I can never --"

"Who gives a fuck why he died," Felix interrupted. He turned away from the boar, his hands clenching into fists. The room was sparse and almost empty. His body longed for something to destroy, for something to overturn or upset in the wake of all that had happened. But no -- even if there had been something at hand, he wasn't the boar. He refused to resort to violence and madness. "Whatever he thought he died for, it was a delusion. You act sane now, but you'll be back to whispering to your ghosts in a week. A day. Hell, boar, in an hour. Your twisted sense of _duty_ may have brought you here, but -- "

"What brought me here," Dimitri said, still looking at the floor, "was wishing to be of comfort to a friend." He held out his hands, palms upward. Felix felt himself shrink away like a cowed animal. "I wanted to ... be here, for you, in this moment of hardship. I know that sounds unlike me, given how I've been behaving for the past months, Felix ..." 

"I don't want your pity," Felix hissed, and turned away. He leaned over his desk, considered the lantern and journal and writing quill atop it. The last time he had spoken to his father, what had he said? Had he written down what nonsensical advice Rodrigue had given him about Dimitri, or how he'd responded? Had he kept a record of yet another way he'd destroyed his relationship with the only family he'd had left?

"Felix," Dimitri said, a bit urgently. Felix realized his shoulders were shaking. Droplets of water fell onto his desk. For a long moment, he cursed the leaky roofs, before he took a breath and it shuddered all the way down, and he had to cover his face. 

"Don't touch me," he said, voice ragged, even as Dimitri's hands found his shoulders and guided him to sit down on the bed. "Don't pretend you _care,_ boar, I don't want your pity, I don't need you here and the sooner you go -- " 

"Hush," Dimitri silenced him, and took a position opposite him, sitting on the other end of the bed. His eye fell onto Felix's bandaged leg, and Felix watched his mouth curl into a wince. 

"Don't get ideas," he snarled. "I didn't get this injury for your sake." There was the question of whose sake it had been for, then, but he wasn't going to answer that even if the boar thought to ask him. 

But the boar didn't say a word. His hands hung in the air like he wasn't quite sure what to do with them, and his eye lingered on Felix's face. The light that had been lacking for so long remained there, intent and unnerving, and Felix almost wished he had the thoughtless, unseeing animal again. 

"What do you want from me," he snapped. Dimitri didn't answer. "Answer me," he said, and then, "You already _took_ my father." He realized he was shaking again and went to turn away from Dimitri. He refused to be seen like this. 

"I know," Dimitri said. His voice was so soft Felix could barely hear it over the rain coming down outside. "I -- I owe you an apology. I never meant to ... " But he shook his head and turned to look out the window, where the drops fell heavy against the frosted glass. Felix couldn't see his remaining eye, at this angle, so it was impossible to tell if he was watching the rain, or ruminating on his delusions, which doubtless resided in the corner of the room. "I didn't want this," he said.

"A bit late for that, isn't it?" Felix said. "How many times could you have turned astray from this path? How many times did we _try_ to pull you from it? I suppose you're just feeling a bit of guilt for the moment, but tomorrow you'll be howling for us to go marching back toward Enbarr, to bring the emperor's skull back regardless of how many people die trying to fetch it."

"No," Dimitri said. There was force in his voice. He turned away from the window and Felix saw startling clarity in his face as he met Felix's gaze. "Tomorrow, I intend us to turn our armies northward," he said. "The people of Faerghus have been without succor for long enough. It may be late for me to offer my aid, but I will give it. Even if ..." His shoulders hunched. "Even if the people no longer wish for it." 

Felix's breathing caught in his throat. He didn't want to be deluded by what was almost certainly a brief flash of conscience, of clarity. But at the same time ...

"You're a damned idiot if you don't think they'll be taking the knee and swearing fealty the instant they see you, you stupid fucking boar," he said. Dimitri's eye flickered up again. "If," Felix continued. His mouth was dry. "If you're just saying this to placate me --"

"Never," Dimitri said, hurriedly.

" -- Then I'm never going to forgive you," Felix finished, regardless. "Empty promises won't bring my father back. You know it as well as I do, whether those promises have to do with reclaiming Fhirdiad or making the emperor choke on her own blood." He rose to his feet. His leg ached a little bit. It was nothing, compared to the burn he'd felt on Gronder. "You swear this to me. Don't make a promise you can't keep." 

Dimitri stared up at him from the bed, and then did something absolutely unthinkable: Clamored off the bed and sank to his knees, all but prostrating himself. 

"Oh, for hell's sake," Felix complained. Dimitri didn't seem to register his voice.

"You have my word," his voice ground out, more serious than anything. "Tomorrow, we turn our eyes northward. I will not rest until I strip the imperial yoke from the neck of Faerghus' people." He raised an arm and placed his hand on his heart. "This I swear, Felix. I -- I know it's what Rodrigue would have wanted. And if I break my vow, then --" 

"Stop that," Felix groaned, raising a hand to cover his face so at least he didn't have to see it. "Get off your knees, who do you think I am? I'm not some priest, for you to scrape and beg forgiveness from." When he lowered his hand, Dimitri was still on his knees, but he was looking up, perplexed. 

"Then what _would_ you have me do?" he asked, seemingly completely at a loss. 

"Get up and act like the king you're going to be, first of all," Felix said. "Don't tell me I have to teach you how to do that. I hope you have _some_ memory of humanity buried in there, beast." 

Dimitri rose to his feet. His movements were tentative, like he didn't know what Felix was going to do next. And, to be fair, he didn't. He straightened to his full, incredibly frustrating height, and lowered his chin to look Felix in the eye. 

"Now what, if you have so many ideas?" he asked. 

Felix knew he was going to regret this. He reached up, grabbed the sides of Dimitri's face, and searched his expression.

"If you gloat about this later, boar," he said, "I am going to cut you down myself." 

He yanked Dimitri down and kissed him. 

Dimitri attempted to pull himself away, but Felix curled fingers in his hair and kept him exactly where he was. The boar grunted into the kiss, and Felix made sure to keep it chaste and as emotionless as a thing like a kiss could be. No passion, and certainly no tongue. Lips on lips, mingled breath. And absolutely nothing else.

When he was certain his point had been made, he didn't just release the boar prince, but actively shoved him away. Dimitri stumbled, and his single blue eye was wide as he fixed it back on Felix's face. There was a distinctive flush in his cheeks. Felix could feel the same in his own, but certainly hoped that it looked less embarrassing. He raised his chin and folded his arms, hoping he looked imperious even without any trousers on -- just his shirt, his bandages, and his underthings. 

"Don't let me down," he said, and considered that more than enough. "Now, go ahead. I've made my point."

Dimitri heaved out a breath, his whole body shaking as he did. He blinked, once, and tilted his head like an animal. Or, maybe, like he was going to listen to his imaginary ghosts one more time. He swallowed so hard that Felix could see his adam's apple bob. He steadied himself on his feet, stared down at Felix, and didn't so much as make a move to leave.

"Well?" Felix said. "I need to rest, boar. A week abed, if you forgot. Be on your way. I don't want to hear your pity about my father, or your nonsense about whether you're to blame. I'm holding you to your oath, and that's all. Go." 

He'd barely gotten the last word out before Dimitri was upon him, taking hold of his face in turn. His lips pressed against Felix's and, unlike Felix, he was intent on what he wanted. He plunged his tongue into Felix's mouth, his breathing hard and uneven. Felix went to pull away, but Dimitri turned his own trick back on him, and Felix all but yelped as Dimitri yanked at his hair. Where he'd been so carefully dispassionate with his own kiss, Dimitri had nothing but passion and driving need. 

"Felix," he murmured against Felix's lips as he broke for only an instant, and then he was back to what he'd been doing a moment ago. But now, his hands found Felix's shoulders, and pushed him down into the bed. Felix was, as ever, powerless to resist Dimitri, even though there had been none of the boar's usual overpowering strength in the action. He fell onto the bed more than he sat, and then, as Dimitri kept pushing, he fell back more than he laid down. The boar immediately took position over him, and Felix stared up at Dimitri's face, soft and gentle like it had been when they were in school. The way he'd always resented. 

"Don't be -- _nice,_" he snapped. "I don't want nice, boar. I'm not here for you to softly -- comfort, for you to make yourself better by convincing yourself you're helping me, being soft and kind. I don't want your _pity._"

Dimitri looked at him like he'd grown a second head. His thin, split-and-chapped lips parted in a grin, and the chuckle he let out sounded less maddened than anything Dimitri had managed since they'd found one another again at Garreg Mach. Since before the Holy Tomb. Since they'd been stupid boys. 

Then, Dimitri ground his hips downward, and at once, Felix understood as his own hips surged up in response. This wasn't about pity, or sympathy, or comfort. It wasn't even about Rodrigue. The bandaged burn on his leg ached. He didn't care.

"I always wanted -- always hoped," Dimitri said. He almost sounded like the boy he'd been, back then. Full of dreams and promise. A shallow mask for the monster within, Felix had come to believe, but -- but. There had always been more to it than he liked to admit. Dimitri's tear-streaked face under the stormclouds reminded him of that much. "Felix," Dimitri breathed, and leaned down. 

"Dimitri," Felix murmured, and Dimitri made a frankly obscene noise before he kissed Felix again. His hands knotted tight into Felix's hair, and he rolled his hips down. 

Felix lost himself in the kiss. He hissed and gasped and did his best not to cry out, but Dimitri seemed to have a sense for how to drive Felix the most mad. He nipped at Felix's lips, sucked on his tongue, and then when Felix seemed to have grown used to the kissing, pulled away to instead nuzzle and nip at Felix's neck. Felix could feel heat climbing up his neck, into his cheeks and all the way to the tips of his ears. 

"If Manuela knew what we were doing, she'd be furious with me," Felix breathed as Dimitri pulled the loose shirt over his head. "A week abed. I don't think this is what she meant." Dimitr's lips pressed against Felix's chest. 

"Oh," Dimitri murmured, his voice a low, almost guttural growl. "I don't think we have to worry about that, Felix. I haven't earned anything that would strain you, yet."

"Stop talking about whether you've _earned_ anything, boar," Felix said. "I thought I'd made it clear that you don't get to decide what you do or don't deserve." Dimitri's fingers knotted themselves in the laces of his underthings, and opened them up. Felix crossed one arm over his face, a breath heaving out as Dimitri's breath rasped over his dick. "Leave it to an arrogant beast to think he knows anything about what he deserves," he muttered. 

"I think, rather," Dimitri murmured, "I'm simply a commander giving his knight the attention he needs after a harsh battle. It's only fair that I take your injury into consideration."

"Oh, please," Felix said. He managed to disguise how harsh his breath was as Dimitri's fingers tugged his underclothes slowly downward. "Spare me this nonsense about being my general. You're my king. At least get your own title right." 

A low, assertive hum was the only answer Dimitri gave him before he sheathed Felix entirely in his mouth. Here, too, he was relentless. His tongue laved the underside of Felix's dick; his cheeks hollowed as he pulled Felix as deep into him as he could. It was enough to make Felix wonder if he'd done this before, which was enough to make Felix's stomach spike with jealousy. He tried to swallow it down. It was easy enough to do, when Dimitri pressed so far that Felix could feel the back of his throat. 

"Shit," he gasped, and gave up on keeping his arm over his face. He had to look.

Dimitri didn't relent. He tongued over the head of Felix's dick, slid almost all the way off and then all the way back down. His lips glistened with spit. His eye was deadlocked on Felix's face, and didn't stray for so much as an instant. He was thin and ragged and he needed a bath and he was Felix's king and his best friend since before they'd even been born. 

"Shit," he repeated, and he didn't have time to as much as warn Dimitri. But his king didn't seem to mind; he didn't pull away even a fraction, just hummed around Felix, licked him clean. Felix himself, however, could barely put two words together, head rolled back to stare at the wall, heart thrumming in his chest like he'd run all the way here from Gronder Field. His eyes were open, but he didn't see anything. 

"Felix," Dimitri murmured, a moment later, and when Felix managed to crane his neck and look, Dimitri was still looming over him, softening dick and all, smiling like the sun coming out of the rainclouds. As though Dimitri had personally bade it, the rain outside seemed to get lighter. 

"Don't think that just because you did that means you're off the hook," Felix said. He was relieved to find that his voice could still sound sharp. "You made me an oath, boar. I expect a king to keep his damned promises." 

Now, Dimitri was climbing to his feet, nodding. He didn't look at all out of place, save for the curious tightness in his trousers. Felix went to get up, to offer some repayment, but Dimitri pushed him back into bed with the heel of one hand. 

"No," he said, "you need your rest. And, as you've reminded me, Professor Casagranda won't thank me for wearing you out." 

"Fuck Maneula," Felix said, but Dimitri shook his head again and turned away. 

"Felix," he said, a moment later. Felix managed to right himself enough to half-sit up. Dimitri didn't look back at him, but he was holding himself upright. Steady and proud. The way -- he swallowed the ache in his chest -- that Rodrigue would have wanted to see him stand. "I won't let you down again," he said. "You, or anyone. I -- know you don't want my sympathy, and I'm not worthy of giving it to you. But Rodrigue -- " 

Felix's throat threatened to catch. A well in his chest threatened to burst, and he wanted nothing less. "Don't talk about him," he said.

Dimitri paused, and then nodded. "Very well." His shoulders shifted. Felix could see the lines of his muscle through his soaked shirt. "But -- the people of Faerghus need us, and the people of Fódlan, once Faerghus is free. I -- I think he would want that. For us to do what we can. For both of them." He turned just enough for the blue of his eye to catch Felix from over his shoulder. "But I can't do this alone." 

There would be time to properly mourn his father later, Felix thought, furiously working not to let that white hot pain sear over him, but maybe he had died for something after all. Maybe it had all been worth it. He could believe it, somehow, watching the man who would become his king stand in the doorway and promise that he was going to change. 

"You'll never have to," he said. "Good night, Dimitri." 

He could see, just barely, the sliver of his king's smile, and then he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @stormsbourne or on twitter @stormsbourne!


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